Today’s post isn’t quite what I was expecting to write if I’m completely honest! This is more an update on my site and the little mess that I’ve got myself into (in which I hope you can all learn something from!!!)

You may have noticed that the site is saying my last post is on April 19th 2013, which we all know is incorrect – my last post was actually on August 16th 2013. I’ve been making a few decisions about moving my online business forwards in the last few days which has ultimately affected the posts on my site (I will explain further on in this post – but want to talk to you all about the changes I’m making first)

Clair Trebes Online is a great place for me to share information, and I have a great, loyal following across social channels and it’s allowed me to meet (and subsequently start Bizzebee with) an excellent team of online business owners and internet marketers who share a passion for making money online honest! (Yes we’re aware it’s a serious task ahead of us, but determination is the one thing we all share passionately)

From the outset I always wanted Clair Trebes Online to develop into a membership site that would be my signature product –over a period of time to let me really help people learn all about social media and their businesses. As I got more into my work I realised that MY strength is writing and teaching people all about Social Media and online branding – to put together and worry about a membership site is probably a little bit too ambitious for me to take on alone.

Bizzebee is a community site – or actually a Colony now, since I’ve found out Bee’s live in colony’s that the wonderful people (well actually men, seeing as I’m the only female on this project – therefore I’m Queen Bee!) I’ve met through my online efforts wanted to put together so we could use the support and skills of each other and really establish ourselves online. It’s a truly brilliant idea and I am so pleased and proud that Bizzebee has been formed because we will be launching the membership site – known as the HIVE in the next few weeks. I am involved and will be taking a lead role in the social media training and webinars (because that’s what I do best!!!) and each other team member will be taking responsibility for what they specialise in. For me (and I know for the others) this is a brilliant opportunity as none of us need to worry about what we don’t specialise in, we each specialise in our areas and it all fits together in this amazing Bizzebee colony that we are building.

So, for Clair Trebes Online what does this mean?

Effectively not much, but I am going to be focusing my online money making efforts with Bizzebee, as I really do believe in it as a product and community to help people in every aspect of their online business efforts (even if they are a local bakery – you can still get online and do it well)

For anyone that knows “me” they will know my personality, and it’s my personality combined with my rather large catalogue of Social Media information that sells. I enjoy going out and seeing people, handling 1 on 1 training issues with people and spending time on Skype running help clinics for people, heck I’ve even got right into my Video tutorials now – if you can get over my Essex/London based accent of course!

My Easy Twitter Guide is still selling fairly, with peaks and troughs as these things generally do.

The biggest problem I’ve had with establishing my website is traffic – or perhaps lack of traffic. All my social channels have great communities within them – but the website seems to be lacking that “Je Ne Sais Quoi” and that has been my bugbear and biggest negative over the last 2 years, so I’ve kind of decided that I’m no longer worried about it! What will be will be.

That said, I am going to be doing something’s differently now – the website is getting a bit of an overhaul – This blog is going to the new and updated domain name of ClairTrebesOnline.com , and will no longer be the main focus.

Instead I’m developing an extensive list of services for people who want to use Social Media and other online business services that I will be able to provide (things like web hosting, SEO, Newsletter creation, Writing services to name but a few) And I will be posting online videos and really ramp my YouTube profile up – all kinds of help and tips relating to things I am learning about and finding out that will help people along their journey.

I’m not sure how long the website overhaul will take, but I’m not anticipating it to be taking a long time, it’s important for me to understand HOW I am making money (after all this is MY business) and then maximise the opportunity to make money in those ways, instead of flogging a dead horse and trying to take on the HUGE job of building a members site alone.

So now, to my little disaster I’ve had with the posts going missing. I had to get some changes done with my hosting company yesterday to split the thisisclairtrebes.com and the thisisclairtrebes.com/blog directories (don’t ask me what because all that back end stuff just isn’t what I’m good at) – as a result of that and having to do some repairs on files, some of my posts have gone missing. Now the wise person would think, all is not lost just re-post from your backups you have stored locally on your hard drive (i.e. word files) – unfortunately the nature of how I (USED) to write meant I would just type away into wordpress and then hit post, and rely upon a database back up to be emailed to me in case of any issues (i.e. like this one)

I spent the majority of yesterday wanting to rip my hair out and in a lot of live chats with my hosting provider who were frantically trying to restore the missing posts, from a backup I gave them from 8th August – unfortunately the file seemed to be corrupt (Sods Law I believe is the technical term) which means I’ve got no way of restoring the missing posts, because I don’t have them backed up anywhere!

Silly Clair – a VERY hard lesson just been learned here ….. So I’m writing this post in MS Word and will be saving it locally on my mac hard drive before loading into my website! This is very much a school girl error I’ve made, and is something that I almost can’t believe I’ve allowed myself to do. So for anyone out there who does blog regularly PLEASE don’t make the mistake I’ve made and rely upon a database back up for times like these. SAVE EVERY SINGLE POST LOCALLY ON YOUR COMPUTER OR STORAGE DEVICE.

So, there’s not much I can really do now, no point in crying over spilled milk as the saying goes, so I’ve learned a bit of a lesson here, but the website / business was in a direction I wasn’t a fan of – in fact it was disillusioning me to the point I wanted to stop doing it. Thanks to a few chats from my fellow Bee’s I’d realised all I needed to do was focus on what earned me money rather than what doesn’t and stop getting all het up about traffic, and it feels like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

I really do believe in the power of positive thinking and the secret law of attraction, I was manifesting (perhaps without realising) my business moving in a different direction and the universe has given me exactly that – albeit in a way I wasn’t expecting with the loss of some REALLY great work but everything has it’s upside and now I can comeback with ME – Much more of ME than before and this will be my strength selling myself as a local business who can help local businesses with their businesses online – but with the added bonus of skype – if you need me in Washington, then we can still work together Just means I’ll have to stay up late!

I’m looking forward to this new era for Clair Trebes Online, getting stuck in with Bizzebee and developing some REALLY powerful training for the Bee Hive over there.

Thank you for your continued patience and support, I really appreciate it all very much!

About MissTrebes

Clair Trebes started Clair Trebes Online as a way to teach people about social media and help them build their business online.
Aside from this, Clair also runs a successful Social Media agency for DJ's, Producers & Record Labels called Cross The Line and is also resident "Queen Bee" over at Bizzebee - which is an online community where people can learn to bring their business' online with their online learning facility The Hive You can connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn.